* If there is something to discuss which should also affect the Beginner's guide, then do it on [[Talk:Beginners%27_Guide/Installation]]. An advanced user will find this page less bloated and easier to read, so let's KISS.

* If there is something to discuss which should also affect the Beginner's guide, then do it on [[Talk:Beginners%27_Guide/Installation]]. An advanced user will find this page less bloated and easier to read, so let's KISS.

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== GRUB2 Installation ==

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== update "Configure the bootloader" part ==

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The bootloader section conflicts with instructions from the beginners guide, and lead me to a failed installation, and it has problems, and I believe that should be changed, but I do not have edit privileges so I am writing this instead. The article says to install grub using pacstrap, then it says to install it after chroot, but doing that only leads to pacman saying "already installed and up to date". For me, it only needed installing once, before or after chrooting worked, and I needed to configure grub after chroot, but that was not mentioned at all.

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I also do not think this article should be the only instructions in the home directory that installation media boots to, because it is really does not stand on its own and is not at all sufficient when the links are converted to plain text and are not actually links. I'm not going to bother finding the right avenue to change that any time soon though.

:: I agree, although I use grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg, these two commands are enough to install grub on most machines so might as well be part of the actual guide. As with all other commands, problems or alternative configurations can be explained at the linked detailed pages. [[User:Spider.007|Spider.007]] ([[User talk:Spider.007|talk]]) 11:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

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I suggest to add a tip to follow instructions in https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub2#Install_to_440-byte_MBR_boot_code_region - I must do it at every installation --[[User:Loper|Loper]]

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: I suggest to add a tip to follow instructions in https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub2#Install_to_440-byte_MBR_boot_code_region - I must do it at every installation --[[User:Loper|Loper]]

As there are several places to install grub, might as well show that. This is something that needs to be fixed sometime soon as there are instructions to install grub2 after chrooting. These instructions link to the '#Configure the system' section, which fails to mention installation of the bootloader. This is where I suggest posting the link.

:: Instead of the link suggested by Loper, I'd go for the following: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub#Install_grub-bios_boot_files

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:: As there are several places to install grub, might as well show that. This is something that needs to be fixed sometime soon as there are instructions to install grub2 after chrooting. These instructions link to the '#Configure the system' section, which fails to mention installation of the bootloader. This is where I suggest posting the link.

I just went through an Arch installation following this guide. Please at least mention the need to initialize the MBR with a link to the appropriate section in the Grub article. It was frustrating to reboot to see an "Operating system not found" message. --[[User:Takaitra|Takaitra]] ([[User talk:Takaitra|talk]]) 16:24, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

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This doesn't work for me.

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It looks so similar to the Beginners' Guide as to be almost redundant, but the first subtle difference I came across meant (for me) that this procedure failed where the Beginners' Guide succeeded.

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Under "GRUB" you have:

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"Install GRUB2 to the harddrive containing your boot partition before you chroot."

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# grub-install /dev/sda

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doing so returns:

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"Path /boot/grub is not readable by GRUB on boot. Installation is impossible. Aborting."

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In the Beginners' Guide, this step takes place after chrooting, which (for me) works ok, (although the wording - "Install GRUB2 to the harddrive containing your boot partition before you chroot" - is the same, so I guess both wiki entries are at fault).

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--[[User:bananabrain|bananabrain]]

== Link Elinks to wiki ==

== Link Elinks to wiki ==

Line 161:

Line 125:

:::::I think this is the best I can do here, the next step to explain all this could be making a movie or a five-act play, but I hope it's not necessary :)

:::::I think this is the best I can do here, the next step to explain all this could be making a movie or a five-act play, but I hope it's not necessary :)

I am not at my first Arch installation, though I had to give up using EFI/GPT to revert to BIOS/MBR so complex is the current procedure. New Arch Linux user may be horrified by this procedure and give up. Fortunately when first I tried Arch, there was a TUI installer supporting GRUB/LVM. Today your are left to the # prompt and this Installation guide that links to too many other guides (UEFI, GRUB2, Partitioning, ...).

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It seems there is a typo error: # arch-chroot /mnt pacman -S /mnt grub-efi-x86_64 (remove the second /mnt)

: As said in the beginning of this talk page. There is a detailed description in [[Beginner's Guide]]. New users should read that page. -- [[User:Fengchao|Fengchao]] ([[User talk:Fengchao|talk]]) 14:40, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

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== Mention the need of virtio modules in mkinitcpio.conf when setting up a guest. ==

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== The configuration and installation of GRUB in the boot sector is absent ==

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When setting up a guest you need the module virtio_blk in your init ramdisk to boot off the guest drive and optionally virtio_pci and virtio_net for other devices. Probably a quick mention and a link to the page I found this in would be enough, however I can't find the wiki / forum page I found this on annoyingly.

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In the GRUB section the guide says:

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This one had me a bit stumped for a day, maybe more because I was ignorant of some details of virtualisation I think, still I think it is worth a quick mention as it isn't painfully obvious from searching about.

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"Install GRUB after chrooting (refer to the #Configure the system section). "

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(Didn't realise about the sig button!)

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But isn't, and following the guide my system fail in the first startup, the lines to add in "Configure the system section" are:

I am not at my first Arch installation, though I had to give up using EFI/GPT to revert to BIOS/MBR so complex is the current procedure. New Arch Linux user may be horrified by this procedure and give up. Fortunately when first I tried Arch, there was a TUI installer supporting GRUB/LVM. Today your are left to the # prompt and this Installation guide that links to too many other guides (UEFI, GRUB2, Partitioning, ...).

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Or a comment like:

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* Configure and install GRUB using grub-mkconfig and grub-install, see [[Grub|GRUB page]] for more info

Please also mention that if using a swap partition the user should execute swapon at the "Mount to partitions" step. It is important to do this so that the swap partition is included when generating the fstab later on in the guide.--[[User:Takaitra|Takaitra]] ([[User talk:Takaitra|talk]]) 17:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Read this first before add new suggestion

Point of this page is to not become another Beginner's guide. It's meant to be a concise checklist of things to be done. So detailed install instruction should go to Beginners' Guide.

If there is something to discuss which should also affect the Beginner's guide, then do it on Talk:Beginners'_Guide/Installation. An advanced user will find this page less bloated and easier to read, so let's KISS.

update "Configure the bootloader" part

to install grub-bios: install guide say:

Configure the bootloader: refer back to the appropriate article from the bootloader installation section.

I agree, although I use grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg, these two commands are enough to install grub on most machines so might as well be part of the actual guide. As with all other commands, problems or alternative configurations can be explained at the linked detailed pages. Spider.007 (talk) 11:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

As there are several places to install grub, might as well show that. This is something that needs to be fixed sometime soon as there are instructions to install grub2 after chrooting. These instructions link to the '#Configure the system' section, which fails to mention installation of the bootloader. This is where I suggest posting the link.

I just went through an Arch installation following this guide. Please at least mention the need to initialize the MBR with a link to the appropriate section in the Grub article. It was frustrating to reboot to see an "Operating system not found" message. --Takaitra (talk) 16:24, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Link Elinks to wiki

Just read that elinks is included on install iso, maybe add an alias/script to allow loading of wiki guide installation guide? --Mr Green

It's included in the /root directory. thestinger (talk) 18:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Change section "Connect to the internet"

Since the installation guide is now part of the iso image, I'd like to see a few references to the manpages of the necessary tools here, since you cannot open the network related wiki pages. Maybe something like this would be acceptable:

Assuming a wired ethernet connection, running dhclient or dhcpcd is
sufficient to get a lease. Otherwise set up the connection manually
using ip add, wpa_supplicant (WLAN with WPA), pppoe-setup (DSL), etc.
You can also create and use netcfg profiles. Read more in the manpages:
ip(8), wpa_supplicant(8), pppoe(8), netcfg(8), netcfg-profiles(5)

A reminder to install the packages for the internet connection in the pacstrap section would also be nice. -- progandy

Suggestions to update this guide as part of ISO

Since this guide is now being included as 'install.txt' in the ISO, it might be beneficial to incorporate the following changes:

Entirely remove the 1. Download section and move it to the Download area of the archlinux.org page. This document here is about installing, not downloading, checking, burning discs or dd'ing. The majority of users reading this have likely already booted up the install medium.

Begin or end the document by mentioning the new archlinux(7) man page which explains the location of important system configuration files

# man archlinux

Slightly expand the 6. Connect to the internet section to include the most basic examples of setting up a private network using a dynamic and static IP address. (Right now it's only a single paragraph/line.) It's a vital installation step and should actually be moved to the top as one of the first actions during system setup. This fact should be emphasized.

I can agree to all your suggestions, I wonder why no one is modifying the wiki. Internet connection setup is the most important part and should be covered more extensively. In addition to your changes, mention the manpages and configuration templates for netcfg and pppoe-setup/connect. The boot medium must at least contain easy accesible information in order to read all pages referenced in the installation guide. There should also be mentioned that elinks is installed and can be used to access the wiki. --Progandy (talk) 21:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The dhcpcd network daemon is started automatically: [1], [2], so there's no reason to start it manually. --DSpider (talk) 08:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Keymaps

As this guide mentions the loading of keymaps using loadkeys there should be at least a very small example about /etc/vconsole.conf

Either not talk about keymaps or tell how to make it correct. When this is used as a checklist, the setup of the keymap should not be missing.

add a step: setting the clock

Lots of things care about the clock being more-or-less correct, e.g. pacman-key will not work at all if the clock is too far out. Lots of brand new computers come with the clock set to something in the distant past, which causes weird problems during the install. Thetrivialstuff (talk) 23:14, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

pacman-key --init / populate?

Isn't this a required step? pacstrap does not seem to do it on its own. Thetrivialstuff (talk) 23:15, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit: Ah; I think this was related to the "set the clock" step -- I see that there is a pacman keyring init in the boot sequence of the latest media, but it (silently?) fails if the local clock is wrong.

Link to UEFI Bootloaders page

Instead of telling the user to install GRUB(2) alone in case of UEFI, direct the reader to the UEFI_Bootloaders page which provides info about all the UEFI bootloaders capable of booting linux kernel. Also how can I edit the guide, there is no "edit" tab shown on top of the page. Is this page restricted to few authors only? -- Keshav P R (talk) 15:31, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Styling

The "Install a bootloader" section should be a bullet point above "Configure the bootloader: refer back to the appropriate ...", no need to have them separate. Using pacstrap to install the bootloader just seems silly (especially since they were also merged in the Beginner's Guide). Also, commands after arch-chroot would look better if they were indented with ": {{bc|# <command>}}", kinda like how # pacman-key -v <iso-file>.sig is at the beginning of the article. Would look much cleaner. --DSpider (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't the information be added before "Unmount leftovers and reboot" ? By the way, the title should mention rebooting, because most likely a kernel update was involved. --DSpider (talk) 14:41, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The link to Post-Installation was the last step of the guide, so that's the line I've replaced with the instructions from Post-Installation.

About rebooting in case of a kernel upgrade, I don't think it's necessary to state that since this guide is aimed at experienced users.

In any case, any reordering or modification of the various steps should better be approved by a Developer, and probably the forum or the mailing lists are better places than this talk page to involve them in such discussions.

Yeah, but at this point, you were instructed to reboot. In order to edit pacman.conf, you need to mount the root partition. And to update your system, you need to chroot into it. It would be better if "Unmount leftovers" was renamed "Unmount leftovers and reboot", and added at the end (before the suggestion to read the instructions from Extra). --DSpider (talk) 15:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

You are still instructed to reboot, aren't you? The "Unmount leftovers" section currently tells you to "reboot and then login into the new system with the root account". In the "new system", the correct partition is already mounted at /.

Whether or not configuring pacman, updating the system and adding a user would be better done in the chroot before rebooting, it's something that should be discussed with a Developer. I too think that it would make more sense, requiring one less reboot in case of a kernel upgrade.

Ok, after reading this I realize that maybe I haven't been clear enough, so I'll try to explain everything more thoroughly.

The current procedure makes you configure the system in the chroot environment from the live system.

Then, still in the live system, it asks you to exit the chroot, unmount the partitions for the new system, reboot and login into the new system. Now, I refuse to write more explicitly in the guide that you should boot into the new system, and not again in the live system, in order to login into the new system.

Since you are now into the new system (not the live system), the root partition is mounted at /, not at /mnt/, so you should be able to configure pacman, update the system and add a user wihtout chrooting. Now, if you've tested the procedure and really noticed that for some obscure-to-me reason you still need to chroot to /mnt in order to do those operations, please ask for clarifications in the forum because I wouldn't be able to answer any more.

Last thing, and I think this is the 3rd or 4th time I write it, I agree with you that configuring pacman etc. could easily be done in the chroot environment at step 1, but you should propose that change in the forum first, since it would be a change in the official installation procedure and I won't take responsibility for that.

I think this is the best I can do here, the next step to explain all this could be making a movie or a five-act play, but I hope it's not necessary :)

"Configure the network" is missing

Basically, you establish an internet connection, but you also need to configure the network, so that you can connect after rebooting. The Beginners' Guide mentions it: You need to configure the network again, but this time for your newly installed environment. The procedure and prerequisites are very similar to the one described above, except we are going to make it persistent and automatically run at boot. And this information seems to be missing from the installation guide. --DSpider (talk) 13:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that any Developer is watching this talk page, you'd better report this in the forum or mailing list. -- Kynikos (talk) 10:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this should be a part of the installation guide. -- Karol (talk) 15:20, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course it should. Because after rebooting (which you are instructed to), you're left with a borked machine. You need to boot the installation media again, establish an internet connection, mount the partitions and chroot into your system, and only THEN install the required packages. There should at least be a line that mentions netcfg. Because I read that it can handle both wired and wireless connections, and it's included in base now. --DSpider (talk) 07:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but there is a line about netcfg already and was there a month ago when this discussion was started. If you want to add a note that after rebooting the user has to enable dhcpcd service etc. (so he should have all the needed packages installed beforehand) that's fine with me. -- Karol (talk) 10:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Install a bootloader

Make it more visible that it is a choise between Grub/Syslinux.

2 amendments to do

In Configure the system:

There is only one link on

Add console keymap and font preferences in /etc/vconsole.conf

This link should apply only to "console keymap".
"font preferences" should link to Fonts#Console_fonts

There is also:

Uncomment the selected locale in /etc/locale.gen and generate it with locale-gen.

EFI / GPT too complex to set up with Arch

I am not at my first Arch installation, though I had to give up using EFI/GPT to revert to BIOS/MBR so complex is the current procedure. New Arch Linux user may be horrified by this procedure and give up. Fortunately when first I tried Arch, there was a TUI installer supporting GRUB/LVM. Today your are left to the # prompt and this Installation guide that links to too many other guides (UEFI, GRUB2, Partitioning, ...).

As said in the beginning of this talk page. There is a detailed description in Beginner's Guide. New users should read that page. -- Fengchao (talk) 14:40, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The configuration and installation of GRUB in the boot sector is absent

In the GRUB section the guide says:

"Install GRUB after chrooting (refer to the #Configure the system section). "

But isn't, and following the guide my system fail in the first startup, the lines to add in "Configure the system section" are:

In the chroot:

# grub-mkconfig > /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# grub-install <device>

Or a comment like:

Configure and install GRUB using grub-mkconfig and grub-install, see GRUB page for more info

Mount the partitions

Please also mention that if using a swap partition the user should execute swapon at the "Mount to partitions" step. It is important to do this so that the swap partition is included when generating the fstab later on in the guide.--Takaitra (talk) 17:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)